Fireballs Falling Over SpainFrom Valencia In The East To Galicia In The Northwest
From J. Wheelock
1-5-4

Jeff - The link below is to the online edition of one
of Spain's major newspapers and is in Castilian. However, you can still
see the map showing where the fireballs were spotted by hundreds of people
and where fires were caused after some crashed to earth. All channels covered
the news this evening on television.

The event ocurred here this evening between 6 and 7 Spain
time.

In the article, the National Institute of Meteorology
states that none of their equipment registered anything out of the ordinary
- either on radar or satellite imaging - and they practically rule out
that the event is due to any known atmospheric phenomenon (sic).

I've done a very quick translation of parts of the article:

At first it was thought to be a plane on fire, but this
hypothesis has been ruled out. Authorities are now checking to see if the
event could have been caused by the desintegration of a meteorite.

The control tower at Madrid-Barajas airport contacted
the Territorial Meteorological Centre of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha
seeking information regarding the event.

* In the province of Leon, an object was seen falling
onto a hill in the town of Renedo de Valderaduey, some 90 miles from the
provincial capital. Inhabitants of the town reported that the sky lit up
a bit after 6 pm and a loud explosion was heard after which a fire started.
The windows of local houses shook according to some witnesses. The event
was also witnessed in the city.

* To the north of the province of Palencia, a loud noise
was heard, accompanied by a strong explosion, causing mayhem among the
inhabitants of the towns of Guardo, Saldaa, Cervera de Pisuerga and Velilla
del R,o Carri"n, according toGuardia Civil (a kind of national police
force) sources cited by the EFE news agency.

EFE also reports that the spectators at a soccer game
in the San Lazoro stadium in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia were also
witness to the strange phenomenon.

Jos Angel Docobo, director of the University of Santiago's
Ramon Maria Aller Observatory, who was at the soccer match, stated that
it could have been a natural phenomenon such as a cosmic rock moving around
the sun and that upon encountering the Earth in its path, broke into fragments
as it entered the atmosphere thus producing the observed effect.

He also offered the hypothesis that the event was caused
by the entry of an artificial object into the atmosphere, such as the remains
of a rocket or satellite, although this option, in his opinion, is less
probable.